page_title: Aghaiani church of Saint Nino
section_title: Layout
hierarchical_section_title: Aghaiani church of Saint Nino / Layout
caption_attribution_description: English: DCIM\100MEDIA
context_page_description: Aghaiani church of Saint Nino is an early medieval Georgian Orthodox church on Mount Tkhoti, 2 km southeast of the village of Aghaiani in the Kaspi Municipality in Georgia's Shida Kartli region. It stands at the place of one of the three wooden crosses erected—according to historical tradition—at the behest of Saint Nino to mark adoption of Christianity by the people of Kartli. The extant structure is a hall church, a 9th–10th-century remodeling of an earlier cross-in-square building. The church is inscribed on the list of Georgia's Immovable Cultural Monuments of National Significance.
context_section_description: The extant edifice, built of stone and brick, measures 8.48 × 4.18 m. It was originally a cross-in-square structure built in the 7th or 8th century. In the 9th or 10th century, the church was remodeled into a hall church: its cross-like appearance was retained as were a semi-circular apse and the western arm, but the dome was replaced with a barrel vault rested on five arches and the northern and southern arms were built up. The entrances are on the north and west. The interior is lit with two windows, one in the apse and the other in the southern wall. The central bay is covered with a gable, while the northern and southern projections have pent roofs. An arched buttress was annexed to the southern façade in the 16th century. The church was repaired in 2007.  
  The sanctuary walls bear surviving fragments of frescoes and inscriptions. The paintings are stylistically dated to the end of the 10th or the beginning of the 11th century. On the eastern façade, a keystone of window arch bears three sculpted crosses. The southern façade boasts an inscription in the medieval Georgian asomtavruli script, arranged in three lines.
caption: Church of St. Nino on Mt. Tkhoti.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "DCIM\\100MEDIA", "Image Make": "DJI", "Image Model": "PHANTOM VISION FC200", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image Software": "Ver.1.0.000", "Image DateTime": "2015:01:31 13:10:06", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "2312", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "GPS GPSLatitudeRef": "N", "GPS GPSLatitude": "[41, 53, 46]", "GPS GPSLongitudeRef": "E", "GPS GPSLongitude": "[44, 32, 3]", "Image GPSInfo": "5088", "Image XPTitle": "[68, 0, 67, 0, 73, 0, 77, 0, 92, 0, 49, 0, 48, 0, 48, 0, 77, 0, 69, 0, 68, 0, 73, 0, 65, 0, 0, 0]", "Image XPSubject": "[68, 0, 67, 0, 73, 0, 77, 0, 92, 0, 49, 0, 48, 0, 48, 0, 77, 0, 69, 0, 68, 0, 73, 0, 65, 0, 0, 0]", "Image Padding": "[]", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/3796", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2015:01:31 13:10:06", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2015:01:31 13:10:06", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "562441/225228", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "1189/100", "EXIF ApertureValue": "297/100", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "297/100", "EXIF SubjectDistance": "0/0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "No flash function", "EXIF FocalLength": "5", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "00", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4384", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2466", "EXIF ExposureIndex": "0/0", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "30", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF DeviceSettingDescription": "[0, 0, 0, 0]", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "EXIF Padding": "[]", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "4216"}